Topic: If you know for sure that NSA/CIA... are watching bitcointalk.org will U use it! - page 4. (Read 4499 times)

This is the thing, if you are not a USA citizen.... Why would you want a foreign agency to browse around in your financial matters? Mike Hearn tend to forget that Bitcoin is a global currency, and his backdoors he is

coding into Bitcoin for these USA agencies, are not welcomed by other nations. They choose not to live in a police state for a reason, why would they use a currency if that currency infringe on their foreign interest?

They have no right to spy on people outside of the USA anyway. Once they enter the borders of the USA it's a whole other story. If you lived in the USA and you get spied on by another country, would you mind?

Same for Bitcointalk... if you live in another country, and you do nothing to harm US citizens, they should leave you alone. I have nothing to hide but my right to have financial privacy.  

HAHAHA, maybe 

They don't have to watch it. They only need to ask theymos for the db or any information they require.

Is it on the Internet? Then the NSA is watching it.

Or you can just go to meetups and talk in person. Though if there is one guy there that has a really short haircut and is pretty physically fit for a computer geek and seems very interested in getting peoples' personal information...then they're watching that meeting too.

You must have balls of steal. Regardless of guilt or innocence, I think the vast majority of people would have plead guilty to a misdemeanor (especially if the deal involved no jail time) if they were facing the charges you were facing.

Sometimes it is a good idea to take a small loss in order to avoid the prospect of many years behind bars. I am not saying this is a good feature of our country's judicial system (I don't think it is), however it is an unfortunate fact of life.

In other words, they were extorting you for $160,000 but let you go for $80,000?

I really don't see how it could possibly be legal for them to be negotiating with you to drop the charges in exchange for you to drop the claim against your property which would allow them to keep a portion of your property.

If the DA believes you are guilty, and believes they can prove it then they should take you to trial; if they do not then they should drop the charges. I don't see what how much of your property the government gets to keep has to do with your guilt or innocence. If the conversation really was something along the lines of that the government would drop the charges on the condition that you would not oppose the seizure of $80,000, then I cannot see how that can be anything other then extortion.

I believe that discussions regarding if charges should/would be dropped should be something along the lines of that there is strong evidence the defendant is innocent, and/or there is little enough evidence that a defendant is guilty so that a guilty verdict is highly unlikely and the above is not based on some technicality (e.g. incrementing evidence is thrown out, evidence is not allowed because of an inadvertent mistake in collecting such evidence, etc.).

edit: I also believe that discussions regarding pleading to a lower charge should involve something along the lines of the fact that you are honest enough about your crimes to admit to them so you get a lesser punishment as a result and/or the government has sufficient evidence to convict you of your charges, however it would be very expensive to bring your case to trial, so in exchange for avoiding a trial you get a lesser punishment and/or there is sufficient evidence to convict you, however bringing your case to trial would cause one (or more) witnesses to have to go through significant trauma/pain in testifying against you and in exchange for allowing them to avoid this you get a lesser punishment.
/edit

I am curious to see/know what evidence they has presented to be used against you, especially forum posts.

(Hopefully you can get a chuckle out of this) Did you at least get tickets to the police ball?

Yes, he seemed to know the rules and seemed to play by them if his writings here were semi-accurate representations of his behavior.  As someone who tried to do likewise it causes me some concern.  I never did any buying and selling except through Tradehole and Coinbase and was anal about paying my taxes so I hope I don't have much to worry about.

Fuckin' pisses me off that the state are such blatant extortionists that it would make a guy in my situation feel concerned.  I've seen first hand people unjustly push the power of the state around in an unrelated event having to do with the DEQ.  Like you say, what actually did or didn't happen or what is or isn't a problem is utterly irrelevant...it's about whether you have money that can be squeeze out, and what it would cost in court to defend yourself.  It's deeply wrong and disturbing, but there it is.  Ultimately they will push to many people to far I'd guess.  That's probably why so many agencies are developing their own militarized enforcement capabilities.

I delight in pointing out to my friends that the first time the FBI did anything of consequence in Bitcoinland (Silk Road) they immediately stole the loot for personal gain.  What is the point of having state sponsorship of enforcement if they are as big a crooks as any and empowered by that sponsorship?

Anyone with an active case will go dark.  I worry about DeathAndTaxes, he has been dark for a long time.

Well it turns out the "justice" system is more about "let's make a deal" than anything to do with justice.

From the moment I was arrested until they dropped the charges it felt more like a real estate deal than anything else.

First we discussed a me pleading to a "lessor felony" - I said no.
Then we discussed pleading guilty to a misdemeanor - I said no.

At this point I did not like the direction of my attorney and the law firm and they didn't know a Bitcoin from a hole in the ground.  I had already spent $25,000 - a lot of it explaining to them what Bitcoins are how they work etc.  So, my wife found me a new law firm that knew what Bitcoins are and more importantly is in California.   Why does that matter?  I am glad you asked.  In order to get any kind of adversarial activity from your attorney you must get one that does not deal with the same prosecutor day in and day out.  An attorney from a law firm in Denver can't be too adversarial with the prosecutor because they know that they will be dealing with the same prosecutor next month, next year and they need to be able to maintain rapport in order to cut the deals for their (guilty) clients that is their bread and butter.

Things went better with my new attorney:

They offered to drop all charges for a forfeiture of, if I remember correctly, $160,000.
I countered, they countered, we countered, etc. and finally settled on a payment of $80,000 half in cash and half in Bitcoin.

For this they dropped both the criminal case against me and the civil cases against all the property they seized from me.

This was a bargain since it was estimated that going to trial on the criminal case was going to cost me between $75,000 and $100,000 and going to trail on the civil case against my stuff was going to cost me a minimum of $50,000.  And, of course, it was not a forgone conclusion that I would win either or both of the cases.

So they dropped the charges and I got everything else (computers, phones, boxes of financial records, the rest of my Bitcoins, etc.) back.

Glad to see you back, and it's nice to hear some seemingly high quality info as a debrief.

I figure that 'parallel construction' is a tool which is used more often than some might think, but even that has to be a serious hassle and fraught with risk so it's probably used less often than others think.

In other news, my dear old friend cypherdoc seems to have gone dark, at least here on trolltalk.  Do you suppose he retained the same attorney who provided you with what sounds it was probably sage advice about keeping one's mouth shut?  That's got to be a tough row to hoe for a guy like Dr. Lowelife.

If you dont mind me asking BurtW how much money were they after you for?

They don't give a crap about porn unless you do kiddie and you have assets to seize.  It's assets, assets, assets.

There was quite a lot of paperwork involved in getting the warrant to put the tracker on my car.  I expect there is even more paperwork to bring in something from the NSA or CIA into a case like mine and they get almost everything they need directly from the companies under their thumb with a lot less paperwork.  For example, my cell phone carrier (Sprint, but that does not matter they will all do it) coughed up every phone number in and out of my phone and every text sent and received even the texts that I deleted.  So I expect that unless there is a very good reason they don't bother with the extra effort needed to bring in the recordings we all know they keep of every phone conversation etc.

Likewise if you are ever in Boulder let's get together.

BTW

Thats exactly what im gonna do.

Yes, of course. Go and troll elsewhere.

I see lots of feer and problems   too bad anyways someone want everything under his controll Sorry guys his name is "Satan"

Hey BurtW,

Thanks for the heads up and I'm sorry for the trouble you went through.

I'm a normal working class man with a poorly paid job and about 1btc to my name, if they want to knock on my door they can.

I'm sure there are many departments that are monitoring this forum, reddit, and other bitcoin related activites as well. Some of those departments might communicate with others, some may not. While the NSA, CIA, and FBI did not feel a need to get involved directly in your case, they very well may be monitoring things.

By the way, if you ever happen to be in the Chicago area, let me know.  Maybe we can get together for a drink or a meal.  I'd love to have a chance to sit and talk with you a bit.

I got nothing to hide.  I don't do anything illegal with bitcoin.  They watch everything anyway.  If they want to know what kind of porn I watch I can save them the trouble.  Lesbians.

Homeland Security is watching this site and they have homeland security agents, confidential informants and cooperating witnesses monitoring and posting to this site.  That is a fact.

Many of my posts and many posts in discussions I had on this forum were placed into evidence against me before I was arrested.

Big talk.  Be careful what you wish for.

So was I.  About $300,000 later I know first hand how they treat "working class person with an interest in cryptocurrency" if they think you have assets they think they can get away with seizing.

Several agents approached me outside my office, immediately took my phone, cuffed me and then took me to a waiting vehicle.  I did not have time to ask them in for tea at my office.  They then took me to my house where about 35 agents were tearing it apart looking for assets to seize.  I tried to make them tea at my home but it was too difficult to do in handcuffs.

The NSA, CIA and FBI were not involved in my case.  It is Homeland Security, the US postal service, the US marshals service and a few others you need to be concerned about.

I also used to believe in the tooth fairy but a couple nights in solitary confinement in a Federal detention center help me see reality.

I know they are watching me and I am here.

For more information see:

http://www.jmwagner.com/

http://www.burtw.com/

Ha ha hopefully mine will be 'fit and important' which couldn't be further than the truth .

cool.my NSA status used to be 'fat and unimportant' but you give me hope that will change.